VPGH internship program supports peer recovery specialists seeking certification
Peer recovery specialists play an important role in addiction recovery, drawing on their own lived experiences to support another person’s recovery.
While certification isn’t required to offer this support, the process provides additional training on person-centered, relationship-focused, and trauma-informed care. A certified peer recovery specialist (CPRS) also benefits from at least 500 hours of supervised experience in the field.
To help more peer recovery specialists earn their certification—and grow the number of providers across the state—the Virginia Partnership for Gaming and Health recently launched an internship program.
Those who have completed the 72-hour CPRS training curriculum are eligible to apply. VPGH’s full-time CPRS team provides additional training on peer support and supervises interns as they work directly with people in recovery from problem gambling and their families. Interns initially shadow their CPRS before taking on a caseload of five support seekers.
VPGH interns also learn critical peer support skills, such as motivational interviewing and active listening, facilitating group meetings, and delivering a presentation on a problem gambling-related topic. However, the most essential skill might be the art of telling their story.
“One of the most powerful tools a peer recovery specialist has is their story,” says Azeem Majeed, VPGH’s lead CPRS. “We don’t want our story to be a story of addiction—we want it to be a story of recovery. We train them on how to tell their story to help other people who are on their journey to recovery, to know how much to share, when to share less, when to share more.”
VPGH brought on its first intern, Tom Dozier, in the fall of 2024 and welcomed three additional interns this spring. Majeed says they hope to soon have one intern in each of Virginia’s five behavioral health districts and, over time, expand to two in each district.
In addition to gaining the critical experience needed for certification, the internship program also expands VPGH’s capacity for reaching support seekers and creates a pipeline for placing certified specialists in communities throughout Virginia. VPGH currently has five full-time CPRS team members—one in each health district—and a network of CPRS providers. However, Majeed says referrals continue to increase, and maintaining a balanced caseload is important to the well-being of VPGH staff.
“We want to make sure that the people who work with us or partner with us practice self-care,” Majeed says. “The internship program allows us to expand our capacity to take on more support seekers and have a little more room to focus on each individual case.”
Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash
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